The starting point for this master thesis was the product of the company "Humlegården", which allows its tenants in office buildings to follow their electricity consumption in real time, through their Smartphone's. The idea that resulted from that application is to investigate if it is possible to direct the tenants in office buildings to reduce their energy consumptions, but also to be satisfied with the indoor environment. This work addresses the factors which are the main energy consumers in office buildings. It addresses legal requirements and standards which are important to follow in order to achieve good thermal comfort in buildings. Some of them are physical climate factors like thermal environment, air quality and lightning.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how teachers perceive that they work with science in preschool through aesthetic learning processes as tools both in the indoor and outdoor environment and make visible what the educators' underlying beliefs are that affect how they perceive aesthetic learning processes as tools used to deepen children's understanding of different scientific phenomena.This is an interview study using the phenomenographic approach as a means and method to make visible and report on teachers' views on how aesthetic learning processes can be used to extend preschool children's learning about science. The results are analyzed and discussed based on John Dewey's theoretical ideas about children's learning, aesthetics and science.The study clearly shows that teachers' views on aesthetic learning processes and how they can be used in the work whit science is very divided and in some cases unreflective. The most striking results are that teachers often are unaware that they make use of aesthetic learning processes because they have a more limited view of what it is than we have in the paper. All informants have science as a core subject. Their focus of the activity is located at the showing and visualizeing of scientific phenomena and some of them express that they submit the aesthetic learning processes to their colleagues or that they collaborate with someone who has training in some art form.

Fryczynska, Izabela, Persson, Sara (2008). Klass och etnicitet på utomhusförskola. En studie utifrån föräldrarnas bakgrund. [Class and ethnicity in an outdoor preschool. A study on the basis of the parents' background].

Organic animal husbandry has received a lot of criticism lately. The aim of this literature review was to examine if the rules and principles of organic pig farming give better or worse welfare in comparison to the conventional systems in Sweden. Health, physiology and behaviour have been used as indicators of welfare in this study. This is due to the importance of using more than one indicator in welfare assessments. Studies have shown that organic pigs have more remarks on joints when slaughtered, but these remarks can be reduced by vaccination against erysipelas.

SammanfattningGymnasieskolans läroplan, Lpf94, framhåller friluftsliv och hälsa som två viktiga inslag i ämnet Idrott och Hälsa. Mitt syfte har varit att studera friluftsliv som en metod för att nå god hälsa. Studien har gjorts genom enkäter med 179 st deltagande elever från åk 1 och åk 3. Dessutom har två idrottslärare och en fritidsvärd intervjuats för att ytterligare ge kunskap om friluftslivets hälsoeffekter. Resultaten från undersökningarna visar att majoriteten av eleverna upplever sig få en bra fysisk, psykisk och social hälsa genom att delta i friluftsliv.

The purpose of the study was to determine the attitudes of the teachers of Reggio Emilia inspired preschools concerning the science work with children between the ages of one and three, as well as their opinions on how the physical preschool environment and the choice of materials influence their scientific work. The study was conducted in three departments of two different kindergartens. Although both kindergartens called themselves Reggio Emilia inspired, their working methods and their environments differed largely. None of them were originally built as Reggio Emilia inspired preschools. One of the kindergartens strived to design their indoor environment the same way as the preschools of Reggio Emilia are constructed, there for they were setting up different stations where the children themselves have the opportunity to explore various scientific areas.

By doing a study of Stapelbäddsparken from a gender perspective I have been investigating and analysing physical planning and landscape architectural design. My intention with this thesis is to reflect on what a gender perspective in physical planning means and what kind of consequences and effects it could have on physical planning and outdoor design. Gender is something that is created, moulded and transformed by social and cultural processes. And it also includes a dimension of power concerning the knowledge of the relationships between women and men where the standard in today?s society is still men?s interests. To implement gender in my analysis of the park I have been observing how the park is used and who is using it. I have also been investigating who?s needs and wishes that has been provided for in planning and design.

Today all buildings contain some form of home automation. It might be heating controlled by athermostat or motion detectors controlling outdoor lighting.This paper,The Intelligent House, deals with the planning of a house in Kiruna, in the north ofSweden and further immerses itself in home automation or intelligent control in single-familyhomes. The house has been entirely planned, from layout to structural design and plumbing.The purpose of the paper has been to investigate the possibilities in home automation in singlefamilyhomes and to choose a suitable home automation system for the house being planned.The system has been designed and the costs and energy savings have been calculated.The system chosen for the house is called KNX and is the largest system for home automation inSweden. It is used to control heating, ventilation, lighting and alarm systems in the house. Is hasbeen found that KNX is very expensive and that the amount of energy, possible to save in thehouse, using the system, is relatively small.

The rising demand for electricity and heat raises a big challange for the society and engineers. Many products have been introduced to the market to supply more energy to the energy systems. Absolicon AB is a Swedish company that develops and markets a combined heat and power generating product. The product, Absolicon X10, uses a parabolic trough to concentrate the radiation of the sun onto a receiver. The receiveris equipped with mono crystalline solar cells and is cooled by a circulating liquid media.

The park at Djäkneberget and its surroundings is a beloved area in the city of Västerås. The area is one of the most popular sites for outdoor life and recreation of all sorts and it attracts different kind of people at different times during the day. The park includes a pond-system where protected species of frog and toad live and breed. These animals have been the objects for many discussions concerning whether to explore the closeby areas or not. The prospected area is situated just next to one of the main ponds and consists of valuable foundationwalls were experts predict that the frogs and toads spend the winter. The municipality has now decided to restore this area to parkland. Because of the areas fascinating history I have chosen to do some research and give a short resume about it. For example are the existing park of Djäkneberget and its founder described together with a short description of the watersystem with the watertower that is situated in the area.

Denna fenomenografiska studie är tredelad och speglar sju lärares uppfattningar om lek, lärande och plats i förskola och förskoleklass. Metoden är kvalitativ, och syftet är att visa hur lärare uppfattar kopplingar mellan lek - lärande - plats i praktikkontexten. Informationen samlades in via intervjuer och verksamhetsbesök. Resultaten av undersökningen visar att det finns plats för lek och lärande i växelverkan mellan inomhus- och utomhusmiljön i förskola och förskoleklass. De flesta lärare pekar på en naturlig och självklar koppling mellan lek och lärande i sina språkliga beskrivningar, medan kopplingen till platser inte är lika tydlig vid en jämförelse.

I naturen får barnen upplevelser som ingen bok kan ge. Här får de upptäcka, undersöka och använda alla sinnen. Naturen kan även få barnen nyfikna och väcka deras intresse. Detta tror jag liksom många av de författare jag läst böcker av, ger en djupare inlärning. Även lärare jag intervjuat ser detta som en anledning till varför man ska använda ett utomhuspedagogiskt arbetssätt.

The present project was initiated with the aim to create pattern modules for use in public environments. My intention was to let the properties, of the specific materials used, have a marked influence on the realisation of the final form. I also wanted to find a material, which is suitable from the perspective of sustainabilityand possibilities to create modules from it. The work was initiated with a study of some candidate materials and many sketches before I finally made my choice. My decision was clear after a visit to the company Glasfabriken inKalmar.

To render outdoor scenes with lots of vegetation in real time is a big challenge. This problem has important applications in the areas of visualization and simulation. Some progress has been made the last years, but a previously unsolved difficulty has been to combine high rendering quality with abundant variation in scenes. I present a method to mathematically generate and render vegetation in real time, with implementation in the scene graph Gizmo3D. The most important quality of the method is its ability to render scenes with many unique specimens with very low aliasing.

Examensarbetet Utomhuspedagogik för andraspråksinlärning är en kvalitativ studie där jag har intervjuat fyra pedagoger, två lärare och två naturpedagoger. Det har skett genom semistrukturerade intervjuer utifrån en intervjuguide. Dessa har alla medverkat i utbildningsprogrammet Aktiva Ute där ungdomar i åldrarna 16-19 år går en naturvägledarutbildning. Hälften av ungdomarna har svenska som andraspråk. Enligt litteraturen så lär sig elever språk genom samspel med andra kompetenta samarbetspartners.